FCC Confirms Net Neutrality Meeting with Tech Execs

The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday admitted that it held closed-door meetings with top tech companies about open Internet issues, and said that, in the future, it will post notices about similar meetings on its Web site.

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The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday admitted that it held closed-door meetings with top tech companies about open Internet issues, and said that, in the future, it will post notices about similar meetings on its Web site.

Commission staff on Monday met with executives from Verizon, AT&T, Google, and more to "discuss details relating to prospective legislation relating to open Internet principles," according to a meeting notice the agency posted Tuesday.

The meeting was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday night.

The FCC's ex parte rules require the agency to document all meetings or discussions that relate to open FCC proceedings. In a Wednesday blog post, FCC chief of staff Edward Lazarus said that Monday's meeting touched on "approaches outside of the open proceedings at the commission" so ex parte rules were therefore "not applicable."

"But to promote transparency and keep the public informed, we will post notices of these meetings here at blog.broadband.gov," he wrote. "As always, our door is open to all ideas and all stakeholders."

Those in attendance at Monday's meeting included: Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president for public affairs; James W. Cicconi, senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs at AT&T; Kyle McSlarrow, president and CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA); Alan Davidson, director of government relations and public policy at Google; and Christopher Libertelli, senior director of government and regulatory affairs at Skype.

These men met with the FCC's Lazarus, as well as Paul de Sa, chief of the FCC's office of strategic planning and policy analysis, and Zachary Katz, deputy chief of the same department.

The move comes several days after the FCC opened a public comment period on how it should proceed regarding broadband Internet regulation. The commission has proposed a so-called "third way," which would narrowly reclassify the transmission of data as a telecommunications service that the agency could directly regulate, balanced by a hands-off approach to other aspects.

Consumer group Public Knowledge said it was "appalled" by the secrecy.

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"To say, as Mr. Lazarus did, that 'other approaches outside of the open proceedings' would not be subject to disclosure requirements is simply not acceptable in any circumstance, must less in an administration and an FCC which have promised new levels of transparency," the group said in a statement.

"Discussions of the authority of the FCC over broadband, or network neutrality can cover a wide range of topics at any given time, whether dealing with legislation or not," they continued. "To have ideas put forward by advocates, whether corporate or public interest, kept from the public, is not the way this FCC should do business."

In a Tuesday appearance in Washington, D.C. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said his company was "very concerned that, in attempting to address legitimate issues about access to the Internet, the FCC has proposed basically an unimaginative and overbearing set of rules that essentially tries to retrofit a new industry into an old framework and expand their regulatory reach well beyond what is necessary," The Washington Postreported.

Chloe Albanesius has been with PCMag.com since April 2007, most recently as Executive Editor for News and Features. Prior to that, she worked for a year covering financial IT on Wall Street for Incisive Media. From 2002 to 2005, Chloe covered technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from American University...
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